MR. DILLON AND MR. BALFOUR ON IRELAND.
WE cannot better illustrate the embarrassment which English Unionists feel in relation to Mr. Balfour's project of passing a Local Government Bill for Ireland in the early part of next year, than by quoting from Mr. Dillon's speech at Limerick on Wednesday the following sentences : —" Unless the Nationalists of Ireland are united, English domination must continue ; and if the Nationalists of Ireland are, as with God's help they will be, united in the future as in the past, we shall sweep out of this country every trace of English domination and English dictation. Nationalists of Limerick, I appeal to you to help this great work. Let us, in the name of God and country, close once more our ranks, and take our stand on the old platform and the old principles. Demand by all means of your representatives the most absolute independence, and every pledge of most absolute independence from English parties ; demand that they should accept no settlement of the national question except such a one as will bring satisfaction to the heart of every Irish Nationalist. Have done, in the name of Ireland, with that traitorous Union and alliance with the hereditary enemies of our nation, which under the plea and dishonest pretext of maintaining Irish independence, is really riveting an the necks of the people, so far as these men are able to do, the chains of English domination for ever." Now, that is the genuine tone of the Anti-Parnellite Party,—a party which openly professes its desire to use Mr. Gladstone's policy for the purpose of winning Irish independence. We are not and have never been disposed to raise the cry against the Irish priesthood and Episcopacy that they desire to persecute the Protestants, either from religious bigotry or from ecclesiastical greed. But we do hold that the Irish peasantry dominate the priesthood much more than the priesthood dominate them, and that a cry such as Mr. Dillon raises of determination to sweep every vestige of English interference out of the land, will be accepted tamely, and perhaps even eagerly, by the priesthood. The Irish priests have shown no trace of moral scruple under Mr. Parnell, and are not very likely to show more under Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien. They possess enormous power to stimulate every anti-English prejudice, every prejudice which makes it a positive sin to show the faintest sympathy with English ideas of justice, and we see very little reason to hope that they will not use their power in a manner likely to make the life of the Irish minority in the future, what it so often has been in the past, a life of fear and peril. The experience of the last year has shown what the priesthood can do to crush the political power of the minority ; and if they are to be, as we suppose they will be, the omnipresent agents of Mr. Dillon's policy, we shall find that the moment the restraining hand of the Irish Secretary and the Irish Constabulary is removed, there will be a cry for revenge on the defeated partisans of the British Government, such as Mr. Dillon himself would find it impossible, even if he wished it, to restrain.
Now, what we want to press on Mr. Balfour,—whose very temperate and guarded defence of the proposed Irish Local Government Bill at Huddersfield we regard as eminently satisfactory in tone, if such a measure is to be hurried through at the presentmoment at all,—is just this : How can we protect the minority, if the majority are to be animated by Mr. Dillon's passion for sweeping away every vestige of British influence and domination ? What, in Mr. Dillon's mouth, does British influence and domination mean, except the kind of impartial justice which the British Lord-Lieu- tenant's Magistrates have defined, and the British Lord- Lieutenant's Constabulary have enforced ? We have no more wish to deprive Ireland of Local Government for a day longer than is absolutely necessary to prevent the infliction of gross injustice, than we have to deprive the English boroughs of their municipal freedom. Let but the Land Act work its full consequences in Ireland, and take the wind out of Mr. Dillon's and Mr. O'Brien's sails, and we shall be delighted to see the various Irish counties asserting their rights and exulting in their privileges, just as English County Councils exert their rights and exult in their privileges. But the real question is, how is the abuse of their power to be prevented without seeming to take away with one hand what is given with the other ? For the Government can hardly even venture to hope that Mr. Dillon's spirit will not be the prevalent spirit in Ireland, so long as the evil spirit fostered there for so many years, in spite of all the efforts of the Vatican to restrain it, still survives. No doubt Mr. Balfour hopes that Dublin Castle will exert its influence as strongly for the next few years as it has during the last few years to restrain the vindictiveness of Irish politicians. But he can only even hope this if the present Government remains in office ; and what sort of ground is there for counting with anything like confidence on so doubtful a result as that of the General Election of next year ? If they go out of office and are succeeded by Mr. Gladstone, the whole tide of Irish passion will be let loose again. The friends of the existing Union in Ireland will be marked men, and probably even subjected to much more suspicion and political odium than they would have been if the split in the Irish Party had never taken place, for it is evident that the Anti-Parnellites are swelling with enthusiasm to show themselves even more anti-British in their policy than the Parnellites themselves. Now, does Mr. Balfour gravely hold that all the conditions and restraints which he may embody in his Local Government Bill, will be steadily enforced by the Viceroy and the Irish Secretary whom Mr. Gladstone will put in for the express purpose of aiding him to establish Irish independence ? It seems to us quite unreasonable to expect that a Constabulary which is to be gradually reduced and extinguished within a few years, will be so manipulated by an Irish Secretary who is contemplating his own retire- ment within a few months in favour of an Irish Home Secretary named by the Anti-Parnellite Legislature in Dublin, as to prevent all that petty injustice which Mr. Balfour, in his speech at Huddersfield, evidently contem- plates as but too likely to succeed the first grant of local liberties. We must look at human nature as it is, and remember that Irish human nature is even more hot- headed and less inclined to moderate itself in the moment of victory than British human nature. And looking at the matter in this light, we confess a complete inability to believe that the English statesmen who may bridge over the interval between the Unionist Government and the Irish Government which is to replace it, will have the power, even if they have the will, to enforce a great number of restrictions which will be regarded by the local population of Ireland as the last efforts of British jealousy and spite.
We hold that Mr. Balfour is entitled to the utmost loyalty and deference on any question of Irish policy, and we regard his authority on the side of a Local Government Bill as far and away the most serious argument which can be advanced for it. But we do wish he would consider seriously what the consequence will be, in case of a change of Government, of passing a Bill which ought to be administered by him or Mr. Jackson, but which, in case of a defeat of the Unionists at the General Election, certainly will be administered by Mr. Morley or Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, in a country full of party organise-, tions and effervescing with passion.
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